This commentary is by Heather Wood, of Waterbury.
In his recent letter to the editor, “Clearing up misconceptions about H.310,” Mark Treinkman accuses Habib Meiloud — who had written an earlier commentary opposing H.310 — of failing to read H.310. Well, I suspect Habib Meiloud did, in fact, read the bill. And so did I.
H.310 indeed does not mention Israel. It does, however, in Sec. 2. 16 V.S.A. § 11, define “antisemitic harassment” as including “negative references to Jewish customs or the right of self-determination in the Jewish people’s ancestral and indigenous homeland.”
In other words, if this bill was passed and implemented as written, it could reasonably be interpreted as prohibiting discussions of, say, the ramifications of Israel restricting humanitarian aid in Gaza or undermining the possibility of an eventual Palestinian state by moving ahead with controversial settlements in the West Bank.
In other words, contrary to Mark Treinkman’s assertion, the bill states clearly that “negative references” about “self-determination” in Israel would constitute “antisemitic harassment.” Israel is considered to be “the Jewish people’s ancestral and indigenous homeland.”
It is also the ancestral and indigenous homeland of the Palestinian people, hence our ongoing conflicts and endless debates. Those conflicts and debates are not going away, no matter how many bills targeting free speech like H.310 get passed and how many universities get their research funding cut because of accusations of antisemitism.
It is true that both antisemitic harassment and anti-Muslim harassment are on the rise; that is, indeed, a concern worthy of legislative intervention. But criticism of Israeli government actions and policies in and of itself is not antisemitic harassment, just as my criticisms of the Trump administration’s actions and policies are not anti-American. It might behoove the Jewish people to stop equating Israel’s politics and state actions with their ethnicity; otherwise, they might start seeing antisemitism absolutely everywhere and in everything.
